Claire
Formerly the Training Manager for SNIP, I took over as Director at the beginning of November 2006. I will continue to deliver SNIPs training programme in addition to my new role as Director.
We had always delivered a range of training sessions but the
Training Manager post was established to co-ordinate the training and develop this aspect of SNIP’s work with professionals supporting families of children and young
people with additional support needs.
Over the last three years I have
delivered training to practitioners from across agencies interested in taking on
a Key Worker role within Care Co-ordination. I developed a ‘training for
trainers’ course to extend the delivery of this course and have run it in
Birmingham, Liverpool and Edinburgh with participants from all over the UK
including Northern Ireland.
Having worked directly with
families, I draw on this experience to give ‘a voice’ to issues and concerns
raised by parents using SNIP’s service. I also use my own experience as
a parent of an 8 year-old boy, Joseph, who has Down's syndrome. Joseph attends
special school in Edinburgh after a year in mainstream. This move has been
very successful for him and has certainly reduced a lot of stress for us as a
family as he is happier and his learning has improved greatly as a result.
I am very involved in the implementation of the Additional Support for the Learning (ASL) Act at both a national and local level. I am a member of the ASL Implementation team for Edinburgh and worked with other colleagues across Education, Social Work and Health to write the guidance for staff in Edinburgh. I am also a member of the Scottish Executive Advisory Group for Implementation of ASL across Scotland. SNIP supports this legislation because it broadens out the scope for meeting the support needs of all children and young people in terms of their learning.